An Adventure With Disguises
by A. Kingsleigh
Summary: In the pirates' world, interesting secrets have a habit of coming to light. And sometimes, the world becomes so much better when they do. Story #5 of the Piratesverse. Rated T just to be safe.
1. Chapter 1

**I'm honestly not sure where this came from. It's just one of those plot bunnies that appeared in my mind one day. And since I'm one for unorthodox concepts, I poked it with a stick. And this happened.**

**Enjoy.**

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own a thing.**

* * *

It was always times such as these, Surprisingly Curvaceous Pirate had decided, when the beard felt heaviest.

"Hello? Are you feeling alright?"

He snapped back to reality, where Charles was waving a hand in front of his face. "Sorry. You can hardly hear yourself think in here," he said, absentmindedly waving his hand at the tavern bustle that surrounded them. "What were you saying?"

Charles looked puzzled for a moment, but he seemed to buy it. "It's your turn," he answered, gesturing to the backgammon board they had found in the cellar.

Rolling the dice, he moved one of his checkers forward and captured one of Charles's in the process. "How's that theory of yours coming?"

He brightened up at once. "I think I know why all the finches have different beaks...!"

Try as he did to listen to his friend, Surprisingly Curvaceous Pirate's attention inevitably drifted back towards Cutlass Liz.

She was simultaneously an object of admiration and jealousy, and both for the same reason. No other woman went around hiding nothing as she did. There were some who shied away for fear of bad luck, but most of the men gave her their respect **—** she was a captain, after all. No such mercy would be shown to a lady who wasn't.

_Still,_ the blonde-bearded pirate thought, _what's it like to not go around in a silly thing like this?_

Charles finally looked in the same direction he was. "You fancy her?" he said, watching Liz regale the crowd with the story of some perilous endeavor.

"Do I...? Oh, no, not at all!" Surprisingly Curvaceous Pirate answered quickly. "Don't fancy anyone, really." He searched his mind for a way of changing the subject. "How 'bout you?"

Charles smiled sheepishly and shook his head. "They always fall asleep whenever I start going on about my notebooks."

"Well, that's their loss, then."

"Are you just saying that?"

"Wouldn't say it if I didn't think it." He tapped the board. "Your turn."

Things might have stayed the way they were, forever, if the Pirate With An Accordion hadn't chosen that moment to strike up a shanty.

The two friends groaned in unison as the familiar strains floated through the air, followed by the clamor of a thoroughly inebriated Black Bellamy standing up on a chair. "We are two mariners, our ships' sole survivors, in this belly of a _whaaaaale..."_

The rest of The Barnacle's Face soon joined in as the tavern filled with slurred, off-key caterwauling. Charles and Surprisingly Curvaceous Pirate were nearly at the door when the staggering form of the Pirate Captain blocked their way. "And where do you think you coves are going?" he said, just as drunk as the rest. "You're missing the shanty!"

"We're just stepping outside for a bit, Captain."

"Come on, join us!" he answered, swishing his tankard of grog around.

Charles pushed it away. "Someone's got to make sure you get back to the boat."

"...Quite right." The captain instead grabbed Surprisingly Curvaceous Pirate's arm. "I know _you'd _like to!"

"I really shouldn't, sir."

"That's an order, lad! Honestly, _what_ is the world coming to? People shouldn't need to be ordered to enjoy themselves..."

Surprisingly Curvaceous Pirate looked to Charles. "I won't be long **—** "

"No, it's alright," he answered. "You'll have more fun with them."

Before Surprisingly Curvaceous Pirate could protest, the captain was pulling him back towards the rest of the crew. "Look, I'm only having _one..."_

* * *

"Captain, the boat's this way."

"I know that, Chuck!" the captain said before promptly turning around and beginning to walk toward the wrong end of the wharf.

Mr. Bobo pulled him back by the hem of his coat, and Charles steered him in the right direction as the manpanzee and Polly returned to herding the rest of the crew. One by one, each pirate was driven to the end of the street and up the gangplank of the Pirate Ship, slurring their words and tripping on their feet all the way.

**_Is. That. Everyone? _**Mr. Bobo asked as the Pirate With An Accordion stumbled past him, still playing snatches of the shanty.

Charles did a head count. "I think so." There was the captain, there was Scarf, there was Gout...wait, where had Surprisingly Curvaceous Pirate gotten off to?

Someone ran into him from behind, nearly knocking him over. He whipped around with a start, only to calm down as he recognized the form of his friend. "Oh, there you are **—** "

The pirate let loose a drunken giggle. "You know," he said in a voice that was much, _much _higher than usual, "that shanty's not so bad once you get used to it."

Charles stepped back in surprise. "What on earth...?" Then he took a closer look.

...No. _No._ Just..._no!_

"I mean, it's got a nice tune," Surprisingly Curvaceous Pirate continued, utterly oblivious to how Charles was staring in shock and horror at him **—** or rather, at _her._ "Don't you think?"

"...I-I think you had a bit too much to drink..."

"I'm fine, Charlie!" she insisted, stumbling and almost falling into the water before the words had finished leaving her mouth.

Charles barely managed to grab her arm and pull her back up in time. "Of course you are!" he said frantically. "Just worrying a bit, that's all!" Trying to touch her as little as possible, he gently placed his hands on her shoulders and steered her up the gangplank onto the deck.

She laughed again. "You're funny when you worry!"

"J-Just get some sleep."

Rolling her eyes, she stumbled over to the hold. "G'night," she said with a wave before disappearing below.

"...Goodnight..." He himself was beginning to sway a bit, and he made it to a crate just in time for his legs to give out.

* * *

Charles didn't get a moment of sleep that night. He simply paced around the deck, his mind racing with questions. Who was she? How did she end up here? Did the others know? No, of course not. They wouldn't allow a woman on the boat **—** would they?

_I have to tell the captain._

It took him all of the next morning to work up to the task. _It's the right thing,_ he repeated over and over. _Besides, if you keep it a secret, you're going to blurt it out sometime, and **then** how will we deal with it civilly?_ Yes, it was the only way. Fully sure of himself, he turned around to go to the captain's cabin...and instead bumped right into her.

She didn't seem to notice his fearful expression. "Mornin', Charlie," she said in her false voice, rubbing her forehead wearily. "I didn't do anything silly last night, did I?"

"...Well..." He could feel his resolve tumbling down. "...No. No, of course not."

She smiled and walked away, and he was left to stare at the boards of the deck. _What now?_


	2. Chapter 2

**DISCLAIMER: If you recognize it, I don't own it.**

* * *

At first, that seemed to be the end of it. Charles let the others remain blissfully ignorant of what he had discovered, and he did not speak to Surprisingly Curvaceous Pirate about the matter **—** nor did he speak to her much at all, really.

_It's for the best, _he told himself. The temptation to spill out his thoughts was too great otherwise. Telling her would do her no good, and shouting it out to the whole boat would seal her fate. If anything, he was helping her. Yes, he saw her giving him odd looks now and then, but she wasn't confronting him about it, so _clearly_ she must be fine with it. Right? _Right?_

_Well, what **else** can I do about it without hurting her?_

And so he kept away from her, repeating the mantra whenever his misery began to gnaw at him. The whole business was forcibly pushed to the back of his mind, where it gradually began to wither away.

For a week, at least.

* * *

The pirates weren't entirely sure how they'd gotten into this. They distinctly remembered the captain seeing another Jolly Roger on the horizon and flagging it down when it passed for a little talk. It got a bit more hazy after that; there was some boasting, some name-calling, the insulting of someone's mother, and _then_ it was all blood and pistols and cutlasses in your face.

Charles caught a flung frying pan and thew it back to where it had come from, then backed up to survey the situation. Several members of the other crew were fleeing already. One more push ought to do it **—**

"AGH!"

The sound got his attention immediately. It wasn't a normal cry of pain; it was restrained, not as high as it should have been.

He feared the worst when he looked in its direction, and that was exactly what he got. Surprisingly Curvaceous Pirate had fallen, her face scrunched up in agony. Her right ankle was starting to swell, her hands were pressed to her left side, and the spot they covered was red with blood.

Everything else was swiftly tossed from his mind as he raced across the deck to her. "You've got to get out of here!" he said, helping her up and pulling her towards the hold.

She tried to pull away. "I'm alright..."

"You're _bleeding!"_

"I said I'm alright!" she repeated, fear creeping into her voice.

_I've always got to do things the hard way, don't I? _Gripping her shoulder, Charles pulled her close and whispered into her ear. "You can trust me, miss."

Her eyes widened in shock, and she froze long enough for Charles to get her through the hatch, down the ladder and into the hold.

"You're going to be fine," he said once they were safely beneath the deck. "We'll **—** "

_CRACK!_

He stumbled backwards into the door as Surprisingly Curvaceous Pirate slapped him across the face. "What was _that_ for?"

"How did you find out?" she snapped, advancing on him angrily.

"I-I can explain after **—** "

"You're explaining _now!"_

"Can we please talk about this when you're _not bleeding?"_ he finally shrieked.

She looked down at the stain on her shirt as though suddenly remembering that it was there, then she doubled over with a pained gasp as her ankle nearly gave way.

"You need to sit down," said Charles. He hurriedly pulled out a chair from the corner, and she flopped into it without protest. "Are you feeling faint? Did you see what hurt you? It wasn't a bullet, was it?"

She clapped a hand over his mouth. "Listen," she said, "go get some rags an' that box of bandages from the shelf. We have to stop the bleeding."

He was gone and back in an instant. "I-I think I know what to do from here."

She lifted up part of her shirt to expose the injury, a clean but rather sizable cut from which blood was still slowly seeping.

Charles blanched at the sight of the red liquid. "Um..."

She sighed as she pulled off her beard. "Would you be more comfortable with the ankle?"

* * *

While wrapping a bandage around her swollen foot, he watched from the corner of his eye as she treated her own wound. She pressed the rags onto it until the blood flow turned to a trickle and finally stopped altogether, then she deftly tied the bandages around her waist. "Just a knife. Could be worse, really."

"Have you done this before?" he asked.

"I have to." She stared with resentment at the beard and dropped it on the floor.

Charles found himself wondering how long the girl had been keeping this up. Either she was just that clever **—** _which,_ he thought, _is very likely true_ **— **or the rest of them were just that thick-headed. Or perhaps both. Looking at her now, it was hard to believe that he'd ever been fooled.

"What are you starin' at?"

"Sorry!" he said, casting his eyes downwards as he felt himself blush. He returned to tying up her ankle. "It's sprained. You'll have to stay off it for a while..." His gaze drifted back up again, drawn to her face.

It was round, he observed, with an air of pleasantness about it. Her small, thin-lipped mouth had creases at its corners from years of being pulled up into smiles. At the moment, however, her lips were drawn tight and her eyes were fixed on the door. At each sound from above, she flinched slightly. She picked up the beard and held it in her lap, ready to slip it on again._  
_

_She wouldn't be afraid of her own friends if I'd just spoken to her. _"...It was a week ago."

"What?"

"You asked me how I found out." Getting up, he locked the door. "I don't suspect you'd remember. You had quite a lot to drink."

She stared at him in confusion and a hint of suspicion. "What did I do...?"

"Use your real voice, that's all." He pulled up another chair and sat down beside her. "I haven't told anyone, and I don't intend to."

"Why not?"

"...I don't want anything to happen to you..."

Surprisingly Curvaceous Pirate studied his face for a moment, and then her own expression softened. "I should've known somethin' was wrong when you were quiet for more than five minutes."

"Oh, that was just me being a fool. As usual."

"Makes us both fools, then." She smiled, and he felt as though a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. "Sorry 'bout your face."

"Never mind my face. Are you alright?"

"I'll live."

_"Chuck!"_ the Pirate Captain called from above. "Chuck, where are you?"

Charles returned to the deck to find that the enemy crew had gone and that his friends were cleaning up the damage. "Oh, there you are," the captain said in relief upon seeing him. "Did you see where Surprisingly Curvaceous Pirate got off to?"

"He's in the hold, Captain. He got a knife wound and he's sprained his ankle. He'll have to rest for a few days."

"Keep an eye on him, will you?"

"Of course."

When he went back to the hold, he fetched a hammock and hung it up next to Surprisingly Curvaceous Pirate. "Captain says I'm to keep an eye on you," he told her as he helped her into it.

"They're not coming yet, are they?"

"No."

"Good," she answered, tossing the beard aside and sighing contentedly.

"So, Miss...?"

"Emma."

"...Emma," he repeated. The name slipped off his tongue with ease. "Where did you come from?"

* * *

**I probably broke all sorts of medical rules in this chapter, but it was totally worth it. Mwa-ha-ha.**

**Next chapter's gonna be the last. See you then!**

**~ A. Kingsleigh**


	3. Chapter 3

**DISCLAIMER: I do not now, nor will I ever, own this stuff.**

* * *

She told him of a little cottage at the edge of the ocean, where a girl had come into the world right as her mother was leaving it. Her father, not knowing what else to do, raised her alone, and that entailed taking her out on the little fishing boat each day.

Every part of her childhood was tied to the sea somehow. When she couldn't sleep, she listened to the waves. She learned to sew from years of repairing sails. Her only book was _A General History of the Pyrates, _and its tales ruled her imagination. By the time she was eight, she could use the stars as a map. By the time she was twelve, she could steer and handle all the rigging. By the time she was sixteen, she could sense when a storm was coming.

"I told 'im not to go out that day," she said softly, "but he wouldn't listen." Some boards and his old orange coat eventually washed ashore, but the body never appeared.

A few days later, she left the little cottage with nothing but a knife, some needle and thread, her book, the coat and the clothes on her back_. _It took her a few months, but she finally reached Edinburgh. "Wasn't too good at anythin' ladylike, so I cut my hair and went off to the factories. Left after a day, it was so horrid. I could hardly breathe."

"What did you do after that?"

"What I had to do," she said gravely. "I went down to the docks..." She paused to take delight in his shocked expression. "...an' I found a spot on a boat."

She had gotten the wool from the lining of the coat, and with a little cutting and gluing, it made a rather fine beard. She cut off most of her dress to make a shirt, and her trousers were formed from her petticoat. "I didn't really think it would work, but I thought I might as well try."

But, by some miracle, she was allowed on. And so it was that the next two years of her life were spent on a cargo ship traveling back and forth across the Atlantic.

It was frightening at first. She hardly slept, and there was never a time when she was without her beard. As the months passed and no one seemed to notice, her paranoia gradually mellowed to vigilance. It was rather dreary, yes, but it was a life. She had grown more or less at ease **—** if not necessarily happy **—** about her new identity when a crew of pirates attacked the ship.

"I gave Scarf an' Gout black eyes before they got the better of us," she continued. "Turns out Captain was just tryin' to find himself a new hat! I brought 'im one, an' he must've liked the look of me because he said he could use another lad. Eleven years ago, that was..."

Charles was so absorbed by her words that it took him a moment to register the knocking on the door. "Is everything alright, Chuck? You've been down there an hour."

Emma hurriedly put the beard back on as Charles went to the door. "Sorry! He's fine now. Would you like to see him?"

* * *

**Six Days Later**

* * *

The knocking on the hold door was gentle, but it gave Emma a fright nonetheless. "Who is it?" she asked, lowering her voice and picking up her beard.

"Just me, Em."

"Why didn't you just say so?"

Charles opened the door. "Afternoon to you, too," he said. "How's your side?"

"Doing well. How's it up there?"

"Captain thinks he's found an X. We'll be going ashore in a few hours."

_"You'll_ be, you mean."

"They wouldn't leave you alone for that long," he answered as he started to unwrap the bandages around her ankle. "They're all worried sick. Besides, this is looking much better."

She nodded absentmindedly, a pensive expression on her face.

"Is something wrong?"

"Just..." She looked down at the beard again. "It's been rather nice havin' a few days off."

"...What would you do if they found out?"

"Not sure. Let 'em do what they saw fit, probably. I couldn't bring myself to fight 'em off."

His words came out before he could think about them. "If they ever do," he said, "I'll help you as best as I can."

"Well, then," she said with a little smirk instead of the attack Charles was bracing himself for, "you can start now by gettin' those bandages off."

"Oh, yes, of course!" he said quickly, returning his attention to his work. "Do you want to try standing on it?"

She nodded. When he had finished removing the bandages, she swung her legs over the side of the hammock and cautiously pushed herself onto her feet, wobbling a bit from the roll of the ship. Steadying herself, she took a few steps forward. "Feels fine."

"Don't stress it too much," Charles said, walking to the door and starting to open it. "I ought to go tell the others, though **—** "

They both jumped back with a scream as the rest of the crew fell through the doorway and collapsed in a heap on the floor.

The Pirate With A Scarf was the first up. "Captain, I said you should just knock."

"Now, now, it was mostly working," the Pirate Captain answered. "So the ankle's better? Wonderful!"

"Does this mean it's Ham Night?" Albino Pirate asked as he and the other pirates untangled themselves.

"Well, of _course!_ But after we go digging. Come along, you two, let's get the boat landed!"

Charles stayed where he was, paralyzed with fear and confusion. Emma was slinking backwards, trying to find the beard.

"Is something wrong?" the captain asked her, not even batting an eyelid.

"...I-I can explain, Captain **—** "

"You don't have to go if you aren't feeling up to it. Fine with me."

"Um, sir?" Pirate With A Scarf said. "I don't think that's what she's worried about."

"Then what...? Oh, the beard thing! I suppose we should address that."

"Yes, _please!"_ Charles exclaimed, recovering from his stupor. "What on earth's going on?"

"You already figured it out," the captain answered, gesturing to Emma. "Took you a while, though."

Realization crossed Emma's face. "You've known? Since when?"

The captain looked a bit embarrassed. "Since a while..."

"We took ya fer a lass when we first saw ya!" Pirate With Gout added.

"What he said," the captain answered as the others nodded in accord.

"...An' when were you plannin' on sayin' something about it?"

"We didn't know what to say. There's all kinds of etiquette involved in that sort of thing, you know..."

"So you're not angry?" Charles asked tentatively.

"Of course not! I mean, we've done _far _worse things than that. Besides, she's one of the crew."

Albino Pirate looked around the room innocently. "Are we going to go digging today?"

Emma slowly shook her head in faux exasperation, then let loose a little laugh. "Sounds alright."

* * *

Charles slipped up on deck with one of his notebooks as the levels of grog consumption in the hold rose higher. Despite the fact that the chest they unearthed was full of chocolate coins, the captain had declared it to be Ham Night nonetheless, and the pirates were taking it more seriously than usual.

He breathed a sigh of relief as Pirate With An Accordion wheezed out a few notes but refrained from launching into a shanty. It was already going to be a rather long night **—**

"What's the book?"

He looked up in surprise as Emma followed him up. "Aren't they expecting you back there?"

"I don't think they mind at this point," she answered. "An' I never thanked you. For keepin' the secret."

"But it didn't matter **—** "

"You didn't know that."

"...I was going to tell the captain at first," he admitted reluctantly. "But I couldn't."

"Why not?"

Until now, he hadn't been quite sure why. "...Because you trusted me."

She smiled at this, but tried to cover it with a quick eyeroll. "Good to know that I haven't gone_ completely_ daft," she said as she flipped through the notebook which she had somehow managed to take from him. "Is all this about your theory with the finches?"

"You remember that?"

"Of course. What's this?" she asked, pointing at a mass of connected lines and letters.

"Oh, the tree!" he exclaimed, lighting up at the thought of having someone to discuss his findings with. "Each letter represents a different species in the genus..."

As he spoke, a subconscious musing ran beneath his words. _You know, she's rather pretty._

* * *

**So that's what happens when you poke a plot bunny with a stick. How interesting.**

**I'm actually bothering to make an outline for the next story, so it may be a while before you see it. In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed this newest trip into my disturbed imagination. Bye for now.**

**~ A. Kingsleigh**


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